Halloa! On 30.08.2011, at 17:04, Klaas Freitag wrote:
Hi,
I am not an artist and do not contribute very much to artwork (except ideas with which I annoy Robert), but I like to propose something as I think we are in a difficult situation when it comes to artwork.
What I see on the artwork ML shows me that we are not working after a plan or concept. Here and there people come up with backgrounds or splashs which is great and shows a direction, but honestly I think that is not enough.
+1
Obviously there is more to design on the distro than just the wallpapers, the login page or the splash screen. There is widget theming, fonts, application spash screens, the Yast installer and probably more. We need everything two times in a branded and debranded version to get our new trademark policy going.
Thats a lot of work, but can of course be simplified, the least effort version is to have 'just' a wallpaper, which is going to be used as splash and login manager background. Given the timeframe we have for 12.1 thats probably the only solution.
But after 12.1 we face the problem again. And to make it a success I'd like to propose to rather discuss about a concept of design than about examples of design.
IMO an example of a concept could be like this (just as an example, not as concrete proposal for the distro):
==> Old Industrial Grounds ======================
The next openSUSE Distro will be in a design in the idea of old industrial grounds. On the ground you find big rusty iron parts, most of them are broken as nobody took care for years. You find big iron girders, some are bent, with wholes and damages. Big screws lie around, holding fragments together. Rarely there is a larger part giving an impression of power and work that was done with this engines back in its times.
The main colors here are dark brown and dark gray tending to black. Some surfaces are glossy as they are wet. Some plants bring a glimpse of dark green. Details show a bit of brighter rusty brown to red. <==
Funny example! ;)
Something like that could be a starting point of discussion where all involved people could develop their imagination of the scene. After we agreed on this little "atmospheric story", the work starts to transfer it on actual design elements: Fonts, colors, images, icons, logos etc. Again, discussion, but along a commonly agreed idea. The question would not be "Is it a nice picture?" but "Is this picture representing the old industrial ground well?" - still enough room for personal like and dislike....
Good point. A very important thing about Artwork and Design (Yep, these are two different things!) is to keep in mind that we are not making art! We style a _Tool_! That means that the artwork/style/design has to meet the goals of our tool, not someones personal favor. Thomas Wirth, a germany web-usability-guru, wrote in his book "Missing Links" about website design: "You can recognise a good designed website, if you did not notice the website." The same is IMHO true for every UI. It should look good, but it should not catch you attention while you are focusing on something you do. An Example: Green Wallpapers ... I saw during the time many green wallpaper proposals, which are often nice art-work. But imagine you have the whole time something green shining on you. It catch the whole time you attention. And, green is a very tricky colour because we can see much more shades of green then from other colours. And the motional associations for green reach from relaxing to "danger-poison-thing-Alert". So, green is nice, but be careful :-) To have a starting point like Klaas suggested is really important to even get a goal! So, +1 for this! Cheers, Robert
Again, I am not an artist, but I work in software for long and learned that a concrete common idea really helps if you develop something in a group. And often it can be developed in a different space than the end product will be, ie. a basic idea of a software is best sketched on a whiteboard... Maybe that can help us to get to a more conceptual working style in artwork? I am not sure, but I am looking forward to reading your opinions :-)
regards,
Klaas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+help@opensuse.org
--- Robert Lihm, Webdesigner - openSUSE Boosters Team SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D-90409 Nuernberg Tel: +49-911-74053-0 - rlihm@suse.de ____________________________________________________________ SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) ____________________________________________________________ SUSE - a Novell business -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+help@opensuse.org